At the Daily Finance, Sam Gustin writes:
The Federal Communications Commission “f*cked up” by holding closed-door meetings with industry giants aimed at striking a deal over Internet regulation, a government source told DailyFinance on Tuesday, even as the agency’s chief of staff defended a process that has effectively shut out the public.
Read the whole article here.
Clothilde Le Coz writes at PBS Media Shift:
At least 80 people were killed during the latest clashes in Thailand. But the confusion and danger that are present in various parts of Bangkok do not explain why several Thai and foreign journalists have been shot since April. Two are dead. The tense political situation also doesn’t justify the leadership’s blocking of more than 4,000 anti-monarchy websites.
Read the whole piece here.
MG Siegler writes at TechCrunch:
When Diaspora
set out to raise money to build an open Facebook alternative site, they had a pretty modest goal: $10,000. Of course, they were raising the funds through a less than traditional means — using Kickstarter
Obviously, the Facebook privacy fiasco played a huge role in the fundraising success. Diaspora pulled in money from a number of prominent people on the web — and, humorously, apparently even Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg himself
Read the whole story here.
Ryan Kim writes at SF Gate:
The era of unlimited mobile data is coming to an end. Say hello to tiered pricing and monthly usage caps.
AT&T is announcing that it is ending its unlimited plans for new smart phones as well as the iPad and replacing it with tiered pricing plans that will be cheaper for most users but will cost more for a small number of power users. Tethering plans are also covered by the changes and will come to the iPhone this summer with the new iPhone 4.0 update.
Starting June 7, if you buy a new smart phone data plan, you have the choice of paying $15 a month for 200 megabytes a month or $25 a month for 2 gigabytes. These replace the existing $30 a month unlimited plan, which AT&T customers can keep if they have an account prior to June 7. June 7, by the way, is the day Apple is expected to unveil the next generation iPhone.
Jason Rosenbaum writes at Firedog Lake:
Over the last few weeks, dozens of House members from both sides of the aisle have signed on to a lobbyist-driven letter advocating to give control of the Internet to Comcast and AT&T by preventing the FCC from protecting the Internet, broadband expansion efforts, and net neutrality. The misleading pack-of-lies letter has prompted some in Congress, Democrats and Republicans, to talk about revamping the 1996 Telecommunications Act with an eye towards giving the telecom companies and their lobbyists what they want.
Today on a conference call with bloggers, Speaker Pelosi threw cold water on those plans. Describing herself as a “big net neutrality advocate,” she said that she has a hard time seeing how any legislation that guts net neutrality, the national broadband plan, or other Internet-focused priorities would get through Congress.
Read the whole story here.
On Personal Democracy Forum, Antonella Napolitano writes:
This weekend a Gay Pride march took place in Moscow took place, but it wasn’t a common event. The Moscow LGBT community has been trying to stage a Gay Pride march every year since May 2006 but the permit has always been denied by the City authorities.
On Saturday, a small group of about 30 participants briefly marched in the busy Leningradsky Street, after organisers totally out-witted the police an security services. More of a flashmob than a march, as it lasted just 10 minutes, but still a significant result for the LGBT community. How was it possible?Thanks to the Internet and its power of spreading information. Wrong information.
Read the whole post here.
Raffi Khatchadourian writes in the New Yorker:
Assange is an international trafficker, of sorts. He and his colleagues collect documents and imagery that governments and other institutions regard as confidential and publish them on a Web site called WikiLeaks.org. Since it went online, three and a half years ago, the site has published an extensive catalogue of secret material, ranging from the Standard Operating Procedures at Camp Delta, in Guantánamo Bay, and the “Climategate” e-mails from the University of East Anglia, in England, to the contents of Sarah Palin’s private Yahoo account. The catalogue is especially remarkable because WikiLeaks is not quite an organization; it is better described as a media insurgency. It has no paid staff, no copiers, no desks, no office. Assange does not even have a home. He travels from country to country, staying with supporters, or friends of friends—as he once put it to me, “I’m living in airports these days.” He is the operation’s prime mover, and it is fair to say that WikiLeaks exists wherever he does. At the same time, hundreds of volunteers from around the world help maintain the Web site’s complicated infrastructure; many participate in small ways, and between three and five people dedicate themselves to it full time. Key members are known only by initials—M, for instance—even deep within WikiLeaks, where communications are conducted by encrypted online chat services. The secretiveness stems from the belief that a populist intelligence operation with virtually no resources, designed to publicize information that powerful institutions do not want public, will have serious adversaries.
Read the whole story here.
On the ISOC-NY Notice Board, Joly writes:
UK regulator Ofcom has issued a consultation paper on the draft Initial Obligations Code, under which the ‘3 strikes’ rules for copyright infringement will be implemented.
This article by Andrew Cormack of UK educational ISP ja.net details some of the problems in the rules.
* Institutions and businesses may be classified as subscribers and thus over-vulnerable, leading to restrictive practices.
* Community services and libraries may be compelled to log proof of id of all users.
Cormack notes that these provisions are in direct conflict with the UK Government’s digital inclusion policies.
Read the post here.
On Global Voices Advocacy, Jacob McHangama writes:
On 27 May the Danish Supreme Court upheld a lower court decision which obliges internet service providers (ISPs) to block access to websites that may contain – or link to other sites which contain – material which infringes copyrights (the Pirate Bay in this instance).
The decision has rightly been criticized as a setback for internet freedom in Denmark. The decision attaches undue weight to the interests of copyright holders while ignoring obvious dangers of abuse, restrictions on internet freedom and access to information and the lack of any due process. The decision may lead to the blocking of websites that mainly includes content that does not infringe copyright and thus restrict the free flow of information. Moreover, by forcing ISP’s to police the Internet without due process the decision marks a dangerous precedent that is likely to include other “illegal” or “offensive” material in the future.
Read the whole post here.
From the BBC:
Bangladesh has blocked access to Facebook after satirical images of the prophet Muhammad and the country’s leaders were uploaded, say reports.
Read the whole article here.
